Unison
Alright, I had a flash of inspiration just now. Here's another update.
Title: Unison
Rating: R
Summary: Ryan Dunn has been away for four years, until he gets a call that he never expected and reluctantly returns to the one place he used to call home.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of the characters in this story. It is simply a work of fiction.
Prologue Chapter I
We’re sitting in the kitchen, quietly commiserating over cups of tea. April is a shell of herself, her fingers pulling at the cotton candy pink cashmere on her body. She stares into space, drifting in and out of grief. I’m afraid Bam might be the same way, but I say nothing. I don’t want to bring it up.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Ryan,” she says, never turning her head. Her voice is thick with anguish, and I realize that it must have taken a lot of coaxing on Ava’s part to get her down the damn stairs. She’s been crying all day, and I don’t know what to do to help her. I don’t think anyone can. As she speaks, I rub her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch; there is no reaction upon her reddened, tear-stained face, and she looks like she’s aged about ten years.
“Thank you… for letting me come,” I whisper. She closes her eyes, and lets the tears fall. I want to brush them away, but I let them be. She’s in pain; I can’t help her heal just yet.
“You’re family, Ryan,” she replies. “You deserve to be here just as much as anybody else.”
There is a tense silence before the words I’ve wanted to say finally fall from my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should’ve stayed,” I say.
April licks her lips, then turns her head and places her warm hand upon mine. “Ryan, your leaving had nothing to do with Phil’s death. You didn’t kill him.”
At the sound of that, a tear manages to escape from my eye, and I can barely get it together to even speak. “I know that. It’s just that… Well, I was far away from you guys, and I did it on purpose because I just wanted to get away from the craziness. And that meant, truthfully, getting away from here. And I’m sure there are people who blame me for that.”
“You mean Bam?” she asks quietly. She brings it up, maybe in part because I’m a coward to do it, or she senses my reluctance to. “You know, it’s been three days since we got the call. When Bam received it, he was screaming… My poor baby, a grown man, was screaming… just like me.” She pauses to take a sip of tea, then she continues. Every sentence she speaks has a long pause between it and the next one, and I am afraid she’s going to break down. “It’s not like my baby to barricade himself into his house like that. From the time he was young, he always hated isolation. Now look what his father’s death has done to him, and I can’t lose him. I can’t lose my baby. And Jess… He’s holding up so well now. But, oh, he cried and cried. Kelly held him all night. It’s funny - my husband dies and my sons have their wives to hold them. But… who’s holding me?”
Her voice is a whisper now, but I know a part of her is angry. I am of no consolation, and I know this, but just being near her, I can sense a bit of her gratitude. I just want to take her in my arms again and rock her slowly, take all the sadness away. But I’m powerless. I’m no match for her emotion, or even mine.
“Dico told me about… Mum-Mum,” I sniffle.
“Did he?” she replies.
“Yeah,” I say.
April places her elbows against the island and rests her head into her hands. “In three weeks - not even a month, Ryan, but three weeks - we lose two people. Mum-Mum wasn’t even sick. Her heart just gave out. And Phil… Oh, my God… You know, Bam always talked about how much he wanted Phil to lose weight, and he did. God, you would’ve been so proud, Ryan. He lost nearly two hundred. He was so thin, we were shocked. Their whole lives, all they knew was this big guy. I met him when he was much thinner, so I’ve seen the changes firsthand. He got to see his granddaughter turn four years old. He talked about spending more time with her, watchin’ her grow up. All those dreams gone to waste…. All of it just because someone wasn’t watching where he was going.”
Phil had been involved in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. He was alive when the paramedics came, but died en route to the hospital. And to think that after all those years we spent with him, we thought that his eating habits would be the culprits to do him in. It was this, ironically, which led Novak to make a vow to stop drinking, at least for a while, from what I was told.
“Ape,” I whisper, coming closer to her. “If there’s anything I can do…”
She looks up at me, her eyes filling up with fresh tears. “Can you bring my husband back?”
I don’t say a word; instead, I just gather her into a hug, her head resting against my shoulders as she is sobbing, saying how much she just wanted him back. The tighter I hold her, the harder she cries, the more I feel myself crying with her.
*************
I take my personal tour around the house, as if it were a museum. How does someone reminisce over a loss, any loss? How does one get over it? Every stair I climb, every step I take, I remember that something happened in that corner or in that spot, and Phil was right there. Like the time we brought that elephant to the family reunion for an episode of “Viva La Bam” and we converted the front door into a drawbridge. Or even when, in another episode, we celebrated Christmas early, and we had a snowball fight that somehow ended up in the house. Then there were those memories that didn’t end up on television, when I realized my feelings for Bam for the first time.
I go up the stairs and walk down the hall to the bedroom where Bam used to sleep. It’s where my heart was first broken - no, carelessly stomped on - by the fact that Bam was avoiding me. He pushed me out of his room when I tried to talk to him about what was going on between us. Needless to say, he wasn’t interested. That was the first and last day that I walked away from a confrontation with him. That bedroom became the room not just for fear, but for fighting back. Fighting back tears of embarrassment and resentment, fighting back the combined feelings of love and hate that I contained for this beautiful prick standing in front of me.
That night, I found myself kissing him.
I was rough, scathing. I felt him wriggling beneath my body, his stubby nails raking down my back as he tried to stop me, and I know he failed miserably. I was twenty at the time; he was eighteen.
Phil, for all his seeming absentmindedness, was the first to notice. He was the one who insisted that I go talk to him, that I share my feelings. He was also the one to let me know that it was alright to vent, to be yourself, to be… gay. Even now, as I age, I no longer know who I am. I’m with one person, yet I have found myself thinking about someone completely different. And even now, as I sit on his bed, those feelings haven’t completely gone away.
I push that to the back of my mind. It’s about Phil right now. Not his selfish son-of-a-bitch for a son.
I am angry, can you tell? But I can't feel the way I do, because this isn't Bam's fault. At the same time, he is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to come, but I can’t just leave these people behind. They’re a part of my life; I need them, too. It’s in my reverie that I suddenly notice on the nightstand a picture of Phil and Bam together. They were just sitting on the couch with their hands around each other’s shoulder. It’s one of the sweetest pictures I’ve ever seen, and I feel a tear tickling my eye again. I miss Phil - his warmth, his smile, his sense of humor, his ability to reassure us that through all the chaos, everything would be fine in the end. The tear drops onto the frame, directly onto Phil’s face. I wipe it away and set the frame back down. I need to leave the room, which I do.
As I walk out of the room, I can still hear the commotion from downstairs. It is only when I pass the master bedroom do I hear whispering and sobbing. I get closer, and the door is ajar. I notice the light is on and I quietly peek through. I see April speaking to the frame, and I recognize even from the side. I’ve seen it so many times because it was always there. She is talking to her husband in the picture on their wedding day. She is saying her “I miss yous” and “I love yous,” reciting her vows which are apparently as fresh as the day of their nuptials more than thirty years before.
I also know that she’s not letting him go. It’s too soon for her to say goodbye.
Title: Unison
Rating: R
Summary: Ryan Dunn has been away for four years, until he gets a call that he never expected and reluctantly returns to the one place he used to call home.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of the characters in this story. It is simply a work of fiction.
Prologue Chapter I
We’re sitting in the kitchen, quietly commiserating over cups of tea. April is a shell of herself, her fingers pulling at the cotton candy pink cashmere on her body. She stares into space, drifting in and out of grief. I’m afraid Bam might be the same way, but I say nothing. I don’t want to bring it up.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Ryan,” she says, never turning her head. Her voice is thick with anguish, and I realize that it must have taken a lot of coaxing on Ava’s part to get her down the damn stairs. She’s been crying all day, and I don’t know what to do to help her. I don’t think anyone can. As she speaks, I rub her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch; there is no reaction upon her reddened, tear-stained face, and she looks like she’s aged about ten years.
“Thank you… for letting me come,” I whisper. She closes her eyes, and lets the tears fall. I want to brush them away, but I let them be. She’s in pain; I can’t help her heal just yet.
“You’re family, Ryan,” she replies. “You deserve to be here just as much as anybody else.”
There is a tense silence before the words I’ve wanted to say finally fall from my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should’ve stayed,” I say.
April licks her lips, then turns her head and places her warm hand upon mine. “Ryan, your leaving had nothing to do with Phil’s death. You didn’t kill him.”
At the sound of that, a tear manages to escape from my eye, and I can barely get it together to even speak. “I know that. It’s just that… Well, I was far away from you guys, and I did it on purpose because I just wanted to get away from the craziness. And that meant, truthfully, getting away from here. And I’m sure there are people who blame me for that.”
“You mean Bam?” she asks quietly. She brings it up, maybe in part because I’m a coward to do it, or she senses my reluctance to. “You know, it’s been three days since we got the call. When Bam received it, he was screaming… My poor baby, a grown man, was screaming… just like me.” She pauses to take a sip of tea, then she continues. Every sentence she speaks has a long pause between it and the next one, and I am afraid she’s going to break down. “It’s not like my baby to barricade himself into his house like that. From the time he was young, he always hated isolation. Now look what his father’s death has done to him, and I can’t lose him. I can’t lose my baby. And Jess… He’s holding up so well now. But, oh, he cried and cried. Kelly held him all night. It’s funny - my husband dies and my sons have their wives to hold them. But… who’s holding me?”
Her voice is a whisper now, but I know a part of her is angry. I am of no consolation, and I know this, but just being near her, I can sense a bit of her gratitude. I just want to take her in my arms again and rock her slowly, take all the sadness away. But I’m powerless. I’m no match for her emotion, or even mine.
“Dico told me about… Mum-Mum,” I sniffle.
“Did he?” she replies.
“Yeah,” I say.
April places her elbows against the island and rests her head into her hands. “In three weeks - not even a month, Ryan, but three weeks - we lose two people. Mum-Mum wasn’t even sick. Her heart just gave out. And Phil… Oh, my God… You know, Bam always talked about how much he wanted Phil to lose weight, and he did. God, you would’ve been so proud, Ryan. He lost nearly two hundred. He was so thin, we were shocked. Their whole lives, all they knew was this big guy. I met him when he was much thinner, so I’ve seen the changes firsthand. He got to see his granddaughter turn four years old. He talked about spending more time with her, watchin’ her grow up. All those dreams gone to waste…. All of it just because someone wasn’t watching where he was going.”
Phil had been involved in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. He was alive when the paramedics came, but died en route to the hospital. And to think that after all those years we spent with him, we thought that his eating habits would be the culprits to do him in. It was this, ironically, which led Novak to make a vow to stop drinking, at least for a while, from what I was told.
“Ape,” I whisper, coming closer to her. “If there’s anything I can do…”
She looks up at me, her eyes filling up with fresh tears. “Can you bring my husband back?”
I don’t say a word; instead, I just gather her into a hug, her head resting against my shoulders as she is sobbing, saying how much she just wanted him back. The tighter I hold her, the harder she cries, the more I feel myself crying with her.
*************
I take my personal tour around the house, as if it were a museum. How does someone reminisce over a loss, any loss? How does one get over it? Every stair I climb, every step I take, I remember that something happened in that corner or in that spot, and Phil was right there. Like the time we brought that elephant to the family reunion for an episode of “Viva La Bam” and we converted the front door into a drawbridge. Or even when, in another episode, we celebrated Christmas early, and we had a snowball fight that somehow ended up in the house. Then there were those memories that didn’t end up on television, when I realized my feelings for Bam for the first time.
I go up the stairs and walk down the hall to the bedroom where Bam used to sleep. It’s where my heart was first broken - no, carelessly stomped on - by the fact that Bam was avoiding me. He pushed me out of his room when I tried to talk to him about what was going on between us. Needless to say, he wasn’t interested. That was the first and last day that I walked away from a confrontation with him. That bedroom became the room not just for fear, but for fighting back. Fighting back tears of embarrassment and resentment, fighting back the combined feelings of love and hate that I contained for this beautiful prick standing in front of me.
That night, I found myself kissing him.
I was rough, scathing. I felt him wriggling beneath my body, his stubby nails raking down my back as he tried to stop me, and I know he failed miserably. I was twenty at the time; he was eighteen.
Phil, for all his seeming absentmindedness, was the first to notice. He was the one who insisted that I go talk to him, that I share my feelings. He was also the one to let me know that it was alright to vent, to be yourself, to be… gay. Even now, as I age, I no longer know who I am. I’m with one person, yet I have found myself thinking about someone completely different. And even now, as I sit on his bed, those feelings haven’t completely gone away.
I push that to the back of my mind. It’s about Phil right now. Not his selfish son-of-a-bitch for a son.
I am angry, can you tell? But I can't feel the way I do, because this isn't Bam's fault. At the same time, he is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to come, but I can’t just leave these people behind. They’re a part of my life; I need them, too. It’s in my reverie that I suddenly notice on the nightstand a picture of Phil and Bam together. They were just sitting on the couch with their hands around each other’s shoulder. It’s one of the sweetest pictures I’ve ever seen, and I feel a tear tickling my eye again. I miss Phil - his warmth, his smile, his sense of humor, his ability to reassure us that through all the chaos, everything would be fine in the end. The tear drops onto the frame, directly onto Phil’s face. I wipe it away and set the frame back down. I need to leave the room, which I do.
As I walk out of the room, I can still hear the commotion from downstairs. It is only when I pass the master bedroom do I hear whispering and sobbing. I get closer, and the door is ajar. I notice the light is on and I quietly peek through. I see April speaking to the frame, and I recognize even from the side. I’ve seen it so many times because it was always there. She is talking to her husband in the picture on their wedding day. She is saying her “I miss yous” and “I love yous,” reciting her vows which are apparently as fresh as the day of their nuptials more than thirty years before.
I also know that she’s not letting him go. It’s too soon for her to say goodbye.